I spent four days in Frankfurt waiting to see where my final assignment would be. I was trained as a psychiatric specialist, which limited where I could be sent. There were only two American hospitals in Germany that had psych wards, so I knew it was one or the other. In the end, I was sent to work at Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center. I arrived there jet-lagged, mentally and emotionally exhausted, knowing no one. At the time, all new soldiers arriving in Landstuhl were given 30 days to in-process. During that time I met my new roommates, met a few new people from the barracks . . . what an eye-opener THAT was!
I had three roommates. One was a young girl who was in the process of being chaptered out of the Army for being pregnant. While she waited to be discharged, she . . . entertained herself, and quite a few of the young men in the barracks, in our room. I didn't have to worry about my other two roommates bringing guys back to our room though. They were seeing each other.
Seriously, where was I?
One evening, not long after moving into the barracks, there was a knock on my door. I opened it to find a guy standing there.
Are you Private Kelley?
Yes.
You want to go get a beer?
No. I'm married.
Is your husband here?
No.
So what's your point?
I felt like I had walked into the Twilight Zone. This place was seriously weird. One of the guys I in-processed with had made the same mistake I had and married a girl he met in AIT. The girl that he married was one of my roommates - one of the ones who had changed teams, if you will, and was now dating the other roommate. Trying to keep it all straight was making my head spin, and I had enough of that just trying to figure my own life out!
Before I had even finished in-processing though, I changed rooms in the barracks. I still had two other roommates, but these two didn't seem quite so . . . complicated. One of them spoke often of this friend of hers named Bear. Bear this, Bear that. To listen to her talk, Bear was the greatest guy ever, he ruled over the barracks, and practically walked on water. I honestly couldn't wait to meet this guy who was apparently the best thing since sliced Wonder Bread. I didn't get to meet him right away though because he was in the States on leave.
In those first few weeks I didn't talk to Brian much. Phone calls were expensive and the time difference was a nightmare. Mail was slow also. It didn't take long before it was easy to forget that I was legally married to someone. I know that sounds bad, but it is what it is. We ran off and got married for the wrong reasons. I even asked when I was in-processing if it was possible to file for divorce from Germany and was told no, that I would have to wait until I could get back to the States to file. So I knew I was stuck. Instead of dwelling on it and making myself miserable, well . . . I chose to ignore it. I didn't immediately set out to act like I was single. It just sort of happened. One night I went out to a bar with my roommate and her boyfriend, JD. There was another guy there named Dave. We started talking and the next thing I knew, he had taken my hand and was holding it. I could have pulled it away and told him I was married. I should have done that. But I didn't. That night, when I left the bar, he kissed me goodnight.
The next night I went back to the same bar with my roommate, her boyfriend and Dave. That was when I finally got to meet Bear, or as I now know him, Mike. My future husband. He had been in the States working on getting his U.S. citizenship (he is Canadian), which is why we hadn't met before. We started talking. We talked and talked . . . I can't tell you how refreshing it was to have a real conversation with someone! One of the major disadvantages of being almost 25-years-old and new to the Army is that you end up living in a barracks full of 18-year-olds. Bear was a few months older than me though, so he was able to actually carry on an intelligent conversation. Also, as anyone who knows either of us now knows, we're both talkers. But it wasn't like we were flirting so much as just enjoying each other's company.
In the middle of the evening, we had to take my roommate back to the barracks because she had to work the next day. That left me with JD, Dave and Bear, who suggested we take his jeep out to "the ridge." The ridge was some place out in the woods where you could see all the lights of Kaiserslautern. I have no idea how we got there other than it was off-road, really dark, with lots of trees passing us by at an incredibly disconcerting rate of speed. It was pitch-black, quiet and peaceful. JD and Dave, who were pretty drunk, started running around in the dark, acting like fools. I was standing and looking at all the lights. It was cold, so Bear went back to the jeep and got a sweater of his for me to put on. As I stood looking out at the lights, he came up behind me and put his arms around me, pulling me back against his chest.
This is where the whole story becomes corny, like something out of a movie. As I stood there with Bear, I felt like I had finally found my way home. I had found the arms that I belonged in. It was the most amazing feeling ever.
Then reality came crashing down on me. Not only was I legally married to someone back in the States, but I had kissed Dave the night before. And Dave was there, on the ridge, with us as I stood in Bear's arms. What was wrong with me? I had become, in my own eyes, the most horrible kind of sleazy woman.
When we left the ridge, Bear stopped at Dave's barracks to drop him off. Dave looked at me, like he was questioning if I was getting out with him or not. I didn't. But as Bear started to drive away, I yelled, "Stop!" I then jumped out of the jeep and ran back to Dave. Not because Dave was the one I wanted to be with. He wasn't really. But he was safe. He didn't feel like home. He didn't threaten to turn my world even more upside down than it already was. I wasn't at risk of falling in love with him. Bear was the risk, and he terrified me.
That happened in June 1991. For the next few months I dated Dave. I dealt with Brian when I had to. Mostly when we talked on the phone, we fought. I don't think either one of us truly wanted our marriage to last, but neither one had the guts to say so. There were numerous other little dramas that played out during that time, but it all came to a head around Christmas. My mom came to Germany to visit. Dave was getting ready to get out of the Army. I finally told Brian on the phone that I didn't love him and wanted him to file for divorce. It was an ugly time. But in a way, it was also a time where I finally set myself free. I had finally come clean and decided to change things. My mom went home. Dave left Germany permanently. As far as I knew, Brian was filing for divorce. And I started to rebuild myself. One of the ways I started doing this was that I started writing in a journal.
In February 1992, as I sat in the window of my room writing, I looked out and saw that there was a party starting up behind the barracks. One of the people sitting at a picnic table there was Bear. For eight months he and I had passed each other in hallways, making eye contact and then looking away, but never talking. A couple of times we ended up at the same bar with the same group of people and made small talk, even flirting a little. But for the most part, it was like the night on the ridge had never happened. When I saw him that day, sitting at the picnic table, I knew I had to find out if there really had been something there. I was not friends with most of the people at the party, having burned those bridges over the previous few months, but I was determined to not let that stop me. So I grabbed a couple beers out of the fridge in my room and headed outside. There was space next to Bear at the table, so I walked up behind him . . .
Is this seat taken?
He looked surprised when he turned and saw that it was me. Then he said,
It is now . . . please. Sit.
So I sat, and we talked. And talked, and talked. It was like the first night all over, but this time I was ready for it. I don't remember how long we talked that day. It was afternoon when I went outside, and it was very late at night when we finally went back inside. The party turned crazy all around us - people drinking, getting loud. Someone had put stereo speakers in a barracks window and started blasting music. All the while, Bear and I talked. No one else was a part of the conversation. I don't even remember who else was at the party. For me, it was only him. At one point, he asked me to dance. No one else was dancing, which I pointed out.
So?
I got up to dance with him and realized that being in his arms felt just as right then, eight months later, as it had on the ridge. Sometime during that dance he kissed me. That was the beginning.
It took a lot more for us to end up married. I still had to get divorced. We each left Germany headed for different places back in the States. But that was how it all started. Next month will be 20 years since we finally got together, and I still get choked up when I think of how precarious our beginning was. But when times have been hard, I have always thought back to that beginning and known - he's the one for me. He is my home.
I really liked your story! It certainly isn't a straightforward way of meeting someone, but it sounds romantic...
ReplyDeleteThat's what I like about our story Inga, it's romantic but not simple! Kind of like us I think.
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